The Kingdom
of God is
Within You
EXCERPT

WRITTEN BY:
Leo Tolstoy

NARRATED BY:
Michael Scott

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, along with many others, have referred to the influence that this work, written by Leo Tolstoy, has had on their psyche, and subsequent permanent change in their state of mind. The selected excerpt, from this much larger writing, reveal Tolstoy's philosophy regarding the literal interpretation of Christ’s teachings and his fundamental ideas on nonviolent resistance.

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Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina stand, in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life, at the very peak of realist fiction. Read more on Wikipedia.

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A Philosophical Comment by Etienne Domingue

Question: “The Kingdom of God is Within You” has turned out to be one of my favorite titles albeit it is only an excerpt from the original book. I was absolutely baffled when I discovered that Tolstoy’s spiritual and philosophical basis was almost 180 degrees opposed to that of Nietzsche. It would be interesting to hear your view on the matter.

Answer by Etienne Domingue: As for the work itself, I am certainly not an expert on Tolstoy and so I do not presume to have understood it all. I can nevertheless attempt to summarize my opinions of it, though I should warn you some of them may be misguided, due to the incompleteness of my acquaintance with Tolstoy's work and the limitations of my intelligence in general.

The dissimilarities in thought and affiliation of Tolstoy and Nietzsche require no extrapolation, but I think it is perhaps interesting to point out that both thinkers were fiercely opposed to the idea of the "Church" as a doctrinally static, socially elitist community of believers. Nietzsche, after all, called churches "the tombs of God."

It goes without saying that Tolstoy's perspectives are challenging, even to present day audiences, be they Christian or not. I sympathize with his critique of sectarianism -- although I disagree with the position that Christ did not Himself seek to establish the Church, as this is explicitly stated in Scriptures (Matt. 16:18, Matt.18). I think that Tolstoy's take on Christ's teachings -- of the distinction between precept and ideal, are very much in keeping with the humanity of the Christian message.

On the other hand, I have a great deal of difficulty with Tolstoy's flat rejection of ritual tradition and mysticism, which seems to me too reductionistic. Rituals have a purpose -- that of connecting with the sacred dimension, an aspect of religious life which Tolstoy does not seem to appreciate. There are elements of religion which lie outside the grasp of mere reason, and those can only be approached in reverence through symbolically meaningful gestures, inadequate though they might seem to the discriminating mind.

Tolstoy's rejection of mysticism seems to moreover downplay the importance of Grace in favour of human capabilities, and to intellectualize Christianity's message. I take offense at the notion that humanity progresses, as it were organically and linearly, through stages which lead to an eventual global Christianization -- something which Tolstoy posits, seemingly in imitation of Hegel's doctrine of the movement of the Spirit. This seems unfair to the Ancients, who may be said to have moved at times closer and at times further from a universally life-affirming philosophy which we might as well call "the Truth." Tolstoy is also somewhat contemptuous of Judaism in his blanket condemnation of the moral incongruities of the Old Testament, and in his attempt to portray Christ as a complete disconnect from previous history and philosophy. The fact of the matter is, the Gospels present Jesus' life as well situated within the historical and philosophical context of the Middle East under a Roman rule, a maelström of millenary traditions. Unless Christians are to see a great deal less wisdom in the designs of their God, it simply does not do to view the circumstances of Christ's Incarnation as a mere accident.

Seeing the miracles as adding more perplexity to the Christian message and making its salvific contents less evident is a rather counter intuitive argument one might expect from someone who puts more stock in Reason than in Faith -- an attitude which is repeatedly criticized in both the Old and the New Testament.

Lastly, I find Tolstoy's critique of Kant etc. almost laughable. The plain truth of Christ's teachings is nowhere obvious to me, and like all "literalisms" Tolstoy's hermeneutics -- though compelling -- end up disqualifying themselves. Reading is an interpretative act, and so one cannot, on one hand, criticize earlier thinkers for extrapolating upon the Scriptures and on the other hand promote one's own reading as "unadorned" Gospel truth. In my opinion, the closest we might come to "pure" Gospel is reading in context, something which Tolstoy categorically refuses to do as he invalidates the "mere circumstances" of Jesus' life. All other approaches to the Scriptures would be influenced by the language of translation, the reader's socio-economic context, etc.

Read More comments by Etienne Domingue